In 1990, the Berlin Wall fell and the Romanians overthrew their government. That same year, cartoonist Kristen Baumgardner witnessed another revolt as students at Mills, one of the last remaining womens colleges, shut down the campus to keep men away. She drew what she saw and created a cartoon history that was instantly banned on the campus, but won the Bay Guardian Cartoon Contest and is featured in the Women’s History Museum in Dallas, Texas.
This collection of ten cartoons and an essay was released again in the delightfully reviewed Perfectly Revolting: My Glamorous Cartooning Career. The publication of this book provided the impetus for the 20th reunion of the strike in 2010 and several “dramatic cartoon readings” in 2015. (You can see a few here and here.)
Although a women’s college choosing to admit men might not seem as significant as other worldwide political events, it did make national news, and it did make history. Sadly , Mills College has now ceased to exist and you can no longer read more about the strike, seemingly, anywhere.
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